“SHE was elegantly dressed in black satin, Queen Elizabeth’s livery for her personal servants, but her dignified demeanour and the manner of her reception showed that she was far more important than a mere servant.” This is Blanche Parry, a Golden Valley girl who dedicated her life to Queen El izabeth I, as introduced by Herefordshire author Ruth Richardson in her latest book Mistress Blanche Queen Elizabeth I’s Confidante.

Before Ruth rediscovered Blanche from the depths of Tudor times, little was made of her historically, despite the hugely influential role she played as a life-long companion of the monarch.

After leaving home at Newcourt, Bacton, Blanche attended Elizabeth from childhood and would go on to amass a fortune in gifts from the Queen, including land in Herefordshire and Llangorse Lake.

In return, Blanche attended to Elizabeth’s every need and carried a vast range of responsibilities.

“Blanche has been airbrushed out of history and what I’m trying to do is put her back in her rightful place,” said Ruth.

“Since I wrote an article on her in 2000, I became interested and started researching – and found that what people were writing was totally incorrect.” What the author subsequently uncovered, and what is portrayed in the book, was a role far greater than anyone had surmised.

Blanche was appointed the Queen’s Chief Gentlewoman and, in later life, the keeper of the Queen’s books and jewels – and even helped channel Parliamentary bills through the political system.

Now, 500 years after her birth and after eight years of research from the author, the mark she left on the country and the county can be fully appreciated with Bacton itself holding precious evidence of Blanche’s remarkable life.

The book examines incredible similarities between the motif on the bodice of a Queen Elizabeth portrait and the pattern of the Bacton embroidery.

Ruth, a former archaeology and history lecturer who has lived in Herefordshire all her life, found no proof Blanche ever returned to Bacton while she was alive.

She was very much intent on returning to Herefordshire in death but, sadly, never made it.

Using letters from Blanche to her cousin Lord Burghley, the book explains how she commissioned a tomb at Bacton Church but died, at the unusually old age of 83, before she could be buried there and was laid to rest in London instead.

Through research, Ruth has also dated the tomb, which is still there, back to 1578 and identified the Herefordshire craftsman who made it, John Gildon.

Readers visiting the church can see Blanche portrayed in the monument as she was in life – alongside her beloved Elizabeth.

For more information on the book, avai lable from Logaston Press at £12.95, or for continual updates from Ruth as her research continues visit www.blancheparry.

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